Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Matt Hulett
After making my top technology predictions recently on Startup Whisperer, there’s one trend I may have missed. Is this the year of the professional manager? Rather than managers moving into startups, look for professional managers moving into ‘restarts,’ or public companies that are reinventing all or parts of themselves. To put this into Seattle context, we’ve already seen some prominent entrepreneurs (turned professional managers over time) make these moves. Some friends that I’ve had the pleasure of working with have made some moves to public companies rather than start their own companies. My friend and advisor, Evan Kaplan (former CEO of Aventail), moved to take on the CEO of mantle at IPass. More recently, Barney Harford of Expedia fame took on the CEO roll at Orbitz.
Maybe 2009 will be known as the year of the manager? Let’s watch closely to see who takes this path versus jumping back into startups. It will be interesting to see if more of these moves happen. Is this a function of the poor economic environment where it’s difficult to raise capital? Is the allure a public company with devalued valuations (hoping that there is a nice pop when the economy turns around)? If you talk to bankers, you’ll typically hear them comment on how ‘private companies’ are trading at a premium versus public companies.
Are there any such moves not listed here that I’ve missed?
